Aereogramme

The Classic Grand, Glasgow, Mon 12 Feb

If you’ve ever sniffed around the Scottish post-rock underground, you might be familiar with the work of Aereogramme, but, trust me, you won’t be familiar with this Aereogramme. Because, after two years out of the limelight, the band are back, except this time in an altogether more magnificent form.

The band’s recent third long-player, My Heart Has a Wish That You Would Not Go, sees them transmogrified from promising loud-quiet dynamicists into fully-fledged epic rock outfit with a scope and vision to their newly confident sound which is nothing short of staggering. And it’s all thanks to illness, apparently. Two years ago, after coming off a mammoth tour and several years of debauchery and on-stage primal screaming, singer Craig B suffered a chronic throat infection which left him virtually mute for three months. With the singer forced to reconsider every aspect of his songwriting and performance, a whole new kind of sound came out.

At the same time, Craig and his bandmates were becoming more and more influenced by cinema. As an experiment, they decided that every new track was to be specifically influenced by a film, and that the whole album should act like the soundtrack to the biggest, most widescreen and panoramic movie never made.

The end result is a band of incredible musical ambition, expansive songs and music with an emotional power that is awesome to behold. Change isn’t always for the best in life, but it’s sure as hell proven to be for Aereogramme.